Dear Pastor Bill:Thank you for your Metrotimes article* in the December 8, 2010 print. What stood out for me was not necessarily the well articulating of the problem and conundrum your community is in, but rather your past as an activist. When I saw this, I suddenly sense that underneath your detailed description of the problem and problems since then is a person who is also open minded. Because I believe from your days as an activist, you have seen the limitations of the olds ways of building a sand castle that addresses the problem, only to see the next high tide wash it away.From what I have gathered, there is a struggle for Corktown's identity by those who have materially, wanting to drive out those who don't have- the homeless in this case. And this struggle for this identity culminated into a beating by a member of the former group onto a member of the latter group. Sadly, they both are members of your parish. And that this incident is currently making it's way through the legal system, the former retaining a high priced lawyer; the latter persistent in seeing it through by appearing to each court hearing.

Hi. Thanks everyone for showing up to a wonderful heart warming, essence to essence seeing evening. For a change, the sign of leftovers is a good reflection that we had so much fun relating to each other we did not use food or grog to get us through the evening.

The improv games we played were funny, and gut busting. Thanks Laura for leading us through the central part of the evening with those games. The Cheetos, Pig and the Tofu factory, Robert in tights and his high wire act, Percy and his non plus performance with the Q&Q banter still resonates in my head.

For those who could not make it, we hope to see you at the next one (TBD).

But for those who certainly did (your Being in real life and in improv are still fresh in my mind), I will like to hear how you felt about the evening by sharing a comment after this post for the other attendees to see. Almost like we are still in the ensemble that brought us great laughter and presence with each other. It is refreshing to relate dimensionally.

Thanks again for last night and your sharing about last night's experience.

**** This was originally written for a gathering of women to claim their higher purpose in July 2010 ******

Loneliness, Emptiness, Invisibility, Fractured communities, Treating each other as a means to an end, More and more drugs to treat children who are getting younger and younger with each passing year, Violence within families:- on our own home front, we live in a world where we feel it has become a run away train, and our sense of control is becoming less and less. Our sense of safety is shrinking with no turnaround in sight.

And when all these home front trains inevitably gather as one collective effect, they accelerate even faster, taking us even further away from our well-being. And they show up as Wars, Global warming, and large scale human violence like Ethnic cleansing.

Whether the symptoms are close, real, and immediate such as domestic violence; or distant, in the future, and not on our home front radar like the Polar bear drowning in a melting ocean, they all speak the same message:

Mother Earth has been suffering from a fever that is becoming a runaway train. And worse of all, we have not been particularly good at reading this fever, which any ensuing actions we create make the fever worse.

(If you haven't read part 2, this post won't make as much sense than if you did. However, you can find part 2 adjacently below)

Here's the Titanic. The fundamental source of invisibility, carried out on the three prong level of personal, political, or social structure, is that in the process of pursuing our happiness, our sense of wellbeing, we miss the mark. We miss the mark when we mistakenly view happiness is pursued through externalities, externalities we believe we have control over, but in reality this control is an illusion. Preceding this Titanic is the original error that we believe we are not already complete.

(If you haven't read part 1 of 'The toxin in Tea Parties', this part won't make sense. You can find part 1 adjacently below).

In part 1, the diagnosis for Tea Parties borrowed the lens of Recognition Deficit. Now having this diagnosis, part 2 here is to address how do we restructure the edifice so as to break this cycle of psychic anemia, a psychic weakened state that precludes any long term healing.

Before looking into this, there are some housekeeping needed here, starting with this question: Do you know what is the quickest way to burn a candle? The Answer: by burning both ends. In this case, the speed the candle burns is analogous to the speed change happens. And the one end of the candle represents the Curative aspect (clean up the mess); and the other end, the Healing aspect (prevent the mess from occurring again). We have seen in part 1 that Recognition Deficit precludes taking on a 10 course meal (healing aspect) and is living from one Tea Party to another in sugar spiked ways, much like a beggar living from one coin to another. However, any attempts to lift this person from this psychic poverty would be doomed until we provide some Recognition Debt relief beforehand. After all, how can a starving person hold on any longer to change when what they need now is bread but the wheat is still green?

Did you know that the American soldiers, who earlier had liberated concentration camp prisoners, caused some of these prisoners to die after freeing them? This is a little known story, perhaps because the world's psyche was still reeling from the sudden horrors of the genocide the Allies had long suspected but did not bear witness till this moment. This story also took the wind out of the Allies stomach just when it was already doubled up from seeing the consequence of it's failure to intervene the Holocaust. For it is a cruel tragedy to now have freedom soldiers unwittingly help some prisoners poison themselves to death.

What happened was when the soldiers took control of these camps, they were gravely moved upon seeing the devastating starvation in the survivors from years of inhuman treatment. So, they gave away their ration and sped them into the mouths of these prisoners in the act of hastened generosity. The prisoners ate anything in sight as fast as they can eat, sometimes taking the next mouthful even before the previous one was half gone.

But because the prisoner's digestive system had shut down from not having seen any real food for many months, and in some cases years, some prisoners could not handle the sudden flush of food. This then poisoned them for their already broken body was now being pushed beyond repair, even with the nutrients it was attempting to digest. And because of the delayed time between feasting and dying, this simple act never gave the prisoners any warning that their eating was actually their death march. It was a tragic irony having to die after being liberated.

***This was first shared on 1-16-10 in a Circle Sharing group in Ann Arbor, MI****

I am from Malaysia, and it was a beautiful country. It is known as the Caribbean of Asia, with the Portuguese coming in the 15th century, the Dutch in the 16th, the British in the 18th, and the Japanese during WW2. We also had the Arab traders who brought Islam in the 11th century, the Chinese came in the 8th century, and the Indians in the 10th century. As you can see, it was a real melting pot where there were so many cultures, languages, religions, and especially the foods that had eventually blended with each other to create it's own unique cuisine that is found no where else. And I am biased to say Malaysian food is even better than it's parent origin.

And all this synergy was possible because of Malaysia's unique location. Malaysia is about the size of Ohio, its mainland in the shape of a peninsula that separates the Pacific from the Indian ocean. It was a suitable stopping place for merchants who back then relied on the trade winds to travel from East to West or vice versa. These merchants had to stop and warehouse their goods while waiting for the winds to change direction on their return trip. And because of its unique but convenient location, Malaysia prospered not only in trade but also in it's plurality of ways people related to each other. So, as you can see, my country has a deep history of tolerance and appreciation for diversity, knowing the legacy of bounty and human richness that came from it.

Just last week, FOUR (4) Churches were fire bombed. And this all started when the Church in Malaysia got a favorable court ruling that the word 'Allah', a word banned by the government against non Muslim usage for the fear of Muslims defecting to Christianity, was not an exclusive word to any religion. The court went on to point out the unlikeliness of the word causing such defection any more than a photo of a car can drive you somewhere else physically.